Monat: Oktober 2015

Dear people,
I have no idea for how long I have been home now. Is it 3 weeks? 4 weeks? I think it is 4 week already!

Autumn has definetly hit Vienna by now, everything is orange and yellow, except for the sky. That one is a heavy and impenetrable grey. But that’s okay! Me and my thousand layers of clothing have adapted to the loss of summer. Yesterday in my lunch break from Uni I was spontaneously at the zoo with my favourite – and only – sister and my favourite – and only – nephew. We have discovered that our favourite zoo animals are lemurs! They appear to be over-caffeinated kids in monkey form with a striped tail. We were also really captivated by the penguins!! Ooh, penguins are amazing! Their feet look like leather shoes!

Lovely little lemurs!!

Saturday my family, some friends and me are going to cook for the refugees at the main train station of Vienna. We all have been wanting to do something for them for a while and instead of the (in my family) unwelcome „trick or treating“, we’re doing our part on Halloween. True, Austria is „our country“, but as a citizen of this beautiful country I have to share my blessings with those who were not as fortunate to be born in such a safe and peaceful country. If I were to hate on immigrants and refugees, then that wonderful peace would be fake and soon enough it would shatter and war would break out.

I hope to do more for others in the future and not let Saturday be a one time thing only.

My birthday is coming up and I have been wondering what to do to celebrate. A friend of mine has mentioned a latino dance bar and I said that was something I’ve always wanted to do. Her reaction was to stop walking and look at me with a shocked expression, when she said: What happened to you in Italy? You HATE going out!!

I haven’t really noticed it, but those two months have changed me.. A bit 😄
And her statement made me miss my partner in crime, with whom I’d take the last bus back home anytime!!

My dear people,
sitting in the Vienna metro at 9 AM on my way to university I hear a mother speaking netherlands with her little son, two turkish friends chatting, some japanese tourist discussing something. There are people upset about the multiculturality we have in this city, but I love it! I don’t need to understand everything people around me say and language and culture is fascinating me! If only it weren’t so weird staring at people’s gestures, trying to make out what they mean. 😉

My week has been busy! Exactly a week has passed since my last blog post and I have only now realized it. What have I done? Tried to get rid of my cold, something I’m still working on, but it’s getting better, hugged my family members as much as possible, tried to keep up with uni – so far I’m okay, but it’s threatening to overwhelm me any day now!

Wednesday I even found the time to meet up with friends for the first time after coming back! When I left home, my mum asked me: Also gehst du jetzt Party machen? (So you’re going out to party?), which was her way of asking whether I was actually having free time! It was so lovely having time to spend with my friends! We grabbed some chips at a medium velocity food (my way of saying a mix between a restaurant and a fast food place) and to our entertainment, they had about 6 different sauces apart from ketchup and mayonnaise, so we tasted our way through all of them!

On Thurdsay, Taddy and I tried Yoga Nidra for the first time. It’s also called „the sleep of the yogis“, meaning it’s supposed to be extra relaxing. The lesson started with singing a mantra to which we didn’t exactly know the words to, but we did our best singing along like at a rock concert. Then we did some standard yoga exercise and then had a long Savasanna, which means lying on your back and just relax everything!
Later that day, at work, I almost would have ordered myself veganic chicken from the local Chinese restaurant. Yes, veganic, not vegan. (Veganisches Hühnerfleisch – pronounciation: veygahnishus Hüünerflaish)

Saturday my mum and I sorted through all the children’s shoes from when me and my siblings were young. The ones we don’t want to keep for future generations, we put aside for the refugees that are coming to Vienna.

Tomorrow I’ll write more on my refugee project, but you can find all info on Facebook. Just search for BUFFET am BAHNHOF.

So much for my week, have a wonderful one yourself dear friend!
Sophie

Ciao my dear people,
I didn’t allow myself much time to adjust to being back home again. Today, after only one full day at home, university started. My first class? Oral communication skills in Italian. And I might say that I really rocked it. Well, at least I understood everything and I felt a significant improvement to last semestre, where I funnily had the same prof and he was very pleased to hear that I spent my summer in Italy to learn the language.

Since my two studybuddies from last semestre are both not doing Italian anymore, I had to make some new friends. My past studybuddies can’t be replaced though and the new friends will have to do their best at amusing me 😛

In class we discussed l’uomo e la donna ideale. In a class made up of women and only the prof being male, the discussion on the ideal man and woman was quite amusing and I kept on grinning about the ironic attitude of our prof.
After a quick lunch at my sister’s, I rushed to oral communication skills in English, which was a much fuller class of about 25-30 people. For next week we have to prepare a short presentation about a historical topic, any historical topic. Others will talk about the great wall of China or ancient Egyptian religions, but me and my presentation mate, we will talk about the history of chocolate. I can’t talk about a topic that’s not close to my heart!…and the stomach is quite close to the heart.

The afternoon I then spent with my favourite sister (only have one, but she’s the best anyone can have) and her 3 month old boy. Oh how I love that squishy little monkey!
We practically ate all afternoon, since we got hungry every 2 hours, but we also did Kanga training. This is THE sport for the fresh mommy with the baby attached right on her tummy! She goes to a class once a week, but you also have to train at home twice a week, so that’s what we did. I also tried squats with my 7 kilo nephew.. Hmm good workout!

Now at 9 PM I’m on my way home. I don’t know how to do my normal life anymore! When do I usually get home during the week? When do I have free time and what would I do then? This morning it was difficult to choose my outfit. I don’t know what my style is anymore. I’ve been living in joggies the past two months!

Well, so far I’m loving it though. Let’s see what tomorrow brings!
Sophie

The kitchen counters seemed lower than before and it was weird seeing all the carpet in my room, which suddenly seemed huge!

Today was General Conference, which means all church members listen to a 2 hour conference of the prophet and president of the church, as well as other so-called general athorities, like apostles, speak. We usually watch it via live stream in our living room.
So this time around my older siblings and their significant others (and my little nephew) came over to spend the afternoon and watch the conference.

We had potatoes and cheese for lunch, which I made with my little brother, who really is not little anymore. He is still 2 cm shorter than me, but I was reaaally shocked when I saw that huge man of 15 years! What happened to my little teddybear?

I finally revealed my secret Hobby X!

It’s knitting!!
Currently, I can’t knit anything other than headbands. Or at least, I haven’t tried anything else yet. I have never been really capable of knitting, but now I am proud to say that I actually know what I’m doing! At least, I thought so. Turns out, I have invented a whole new technique to knitting, but it works! Currently, I’m learning the real way to knit and it takes so much more concentration! How can you ever take a break from knitting and lay aside the needles? How do you know where you are at when you pick them up again?

Apart from my hobby, I also revealed the huge bag of food I bought! I bought fette biscottate, which is what Italians eat for breakfast as a type of bread. Austrians only eat those when we have a stomach ache and can’t eat anything else, though I have to say the taste and consistency is a little bit different. I also bought various cookies, candy, fizzy drinks, malt coffee (since we don’t drink bean coffee) and Fonzies, which is a corn snack with cheese.

Did I mention that I also made Tiramisù? Probably needless to say that I ate so much, I can’t move anymore!

University starts tomorrow with oral competence in Italian and English after. Let’s see how it goes. Wish me luck!
Sophie

Again in Trento, I met with Erin and Anete and we bought ourselves some food and I even bought little snacks for tomorrow. Not very healthy snacks, I might add. We originally intended to go to Trento’s Oktoberfest, but upon hearing the hotspot of the night was elsewhere, I was almost relieved, as I have not brought my Dirndl along 😮
To wait until the bars filled with people, we sat on a stone cold bench (made of stone) in the train station, where we chatted and took a million selfies. I even taught Erin, the microwave-spoiled English girl, that if your tea goes cold, you can heat it up on the stove. We laughed tears when she looked at me – completely shocked – and said: I never thought of that!
Ya learn something new every day 😂
So instead, Erin, Tommaso and I went to this underground bar – and underground is meant literally here – where there’s boardgames, tea and live music. We played shit the jack naked, MauMau, Mikado and Dominoes until it hurt keeping my eyes open and my voice changed into the voice of a chainsmoker.

In the rain and past 1 in the morning, Erin and I said our goodbyes until 2017, where we will travel somewhere together! Will it be southern Italy, France, Asia? We don’t know yet, but it will happen! I did not cry saying goodbye to Erin, but it was a close call. I’ll miss you terribly, my wonderful elf. You’ll never live that one down 😛

By the way, I forgot to buy Briscola cards like the ones you see in the picture. I will have to return to Italy soon to remedy my mistake.